Sanders scrambles to keep pace with Clinton

SEATTLE — Climbing off the mat after five morale-busting losses last week, Bernie Sanders won the Democrats Abroad primary on Monday and followed that up by taking two of the three Democratic contests Tuesday.

He’s also in a strong position to reel off a few more victories on Saturday — when caucuses in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington take place.

Still, the revolution remains stalled: Even under the best case scenario where he pulls out a tough win in Hawaii, carries Alaska and wins by a big margin in Washington this weekend, his trajectory isn’t steep enough to get him within striking distance of Hillary Clinton, who came into Tuesday with a lead of more than 300 pledged delegates.

His problem isn’t that he’s not winning enough states. It’s that when he wins, it’s not by large enough margins and it’s not in large enough states. Hillary Clinton’s wins in big, delegate-rich states like Florida and Texas — by big margins — have given her a lead that’s difficult to carve into, especially given Democratic proportionality rules. On top of that, there’s another enormous obstacle confronting Sanders: Clinton’s massive lead among superdelegates, who have flocked to her candidacy.

“The delegate math is very daunting for Bernie Sanders, the delegate math is daunting for anyone other than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,” explained Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network think tank. “She’s on track to win, and it’s a little hard to understand how Sanders can fundamentally alter his trajectory in the race. Something dramatic would have to happen.”

Sanders and his aides believe they can surprise Clinton in her home state.

Sanders, accordingly, is counting on something dramatic.

His long shot plan to catch Clinton would require burning through cash to rapidly scale up his nationwide effort, and that’s the easy part. His victories tend to jolt his fundraising operation: The online campaign cash juggernaut raised over $6 million in the day after polls closed in New Hampshire and over $5 million after Michigan. If the team can replicate a version of that success each time he scores a big win, figure people close to Sanders, he’ll be able to continue aggressively funding campaign ads across the country and hiring politically plugged-in staffers.

If he follows up his Tuesday wins in Idaho and Utah with a wide victory in Washington state on Saturday, any hope he has of catching Clinton runs through Wisconsin on April 5, a large state with favorable conditions for the underdog. Then comes the delegate-packed April 19 New York primary — where Sanders and his aides believe they can surprise Clinton in her home state. It’s a bit of a stretch, but a win there fueled by young progressives would go a long way toward undermining the notion of Clinton’s inevitability, his team believes, resulting in a fundamental rethinking of the race from pundits and Democrats alike.

Spurred on by what would likely be a week of favorable news coverage — and matched by a fundraising rush, accompanied by mounting questions about Clinton’s strength — Sanders would then need to over-perform in the five Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic primaries on April 26 and remain competitive through May’s slow trickle of contests. Sanders’ aides believe if they can do that, he’ll have a shot at yet another big win, in the biggest delegate pool of them all, California’s June 7 primary.It’s a big if, but Sanders was in San Diego on Tuesday night, more than two months before the state votes, emphasizing the state’s importance and making his pitch.”If there is a large voter turnout, we will win here in California,” he said, repeating a refrain that has become common for him on the campaign trail.

“We’re going to start chipping away at the secretary’s delegate lead,” added his campaign manager Jeff Weaver, speaking to CNN after the senator spoke. “We have a path to victory. It’s not an easy path, but it never has been an easy path.”

Taking nothing for granted, the Clinton campaign is already actively working to deny him even that long shot path by taking advantage of the primary’s proportional delegate scheme. Organizing and sending the candidate, her husband, and her daughter into states like Washington, the Brooklyn-based campaign team is aiming to cut down on his delegate margin at every turn.

In Alaska, for example — a state Sanders is likely to win — Clinton has opened an Anchorage headquarters and recently unveiled a slate of high-profile endorsements. In Hawaii, her team has two offices, television ads on the air, and has organized with Sen. Mazie Hirono, fighting back against the work done by top Sanders surrogate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Such efforts, they believe, will render Sanders’ long-term play for New York and California moot, since his attempts to win by large margins there may not be enough to put him over the top if he can’t make incremental gains in smaller states like Hawaii in the meantime. As it currently stands, Sanders needs to considerably outperform current projections in other large states like Pennsylvania in order to win, according to Democratic and independent analysts.

With that math in mind, Clinton herself has slowly started turning her public appearances toward a general election focus, even as her schedule reflects the Democratic primary and caucus calendar.

Pieces of the Clinton machinery have more actively shifted into their general election gear.

“The last thing we need now are leaders who incite more fear. In the face of terror America doesn’t panic,” Clinton told a crowd in Seattle on Tuesday night, after Arizona was called, following a day in which she repeatedly, implicitly criticized the Republican front-runner Trump on foreign policy before also ripping Ted Cruz.

Pieces of the Clinton machinery have more actively shifted into their general election gear: the main pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, started reserving ad time in swing states this week, for example, as first reported by the New York Times on Tuesday.

Still, even though some of Clinton’s fundraisers and more prominent allies are growing increasingly frustrated that she has to continue spending time and money on the primary when they would prefer she stockpile her resources ahead of what could be a bruising battle against the billionaire, there have been few calls for Sanders to drop out.

Such a move could alienate his backers, Clinton allies believe — backers she will need come November. And, thanks to the chaos on the Republican side, an opponent-less glide to the nomination would all-but-ensure Clinton is booted off airwaves for three months, some Democrats now think.

Because of how Democrats crafted primary schedule, explained Rosenberg, “with this thing being over by mid-March — with a compressed calendar and the incumbent president making news all the time — there’s a scenario where it’s hard to see how Hillary gets a lot of TV between now and the convention. So, in a funny way, Hillary needs Bernie to keep doing a good job. Just not too good a job.”